If Marco told Ben the truth, she’d forgotten lying on those rocks.
What else was she forgetting?
It just didn’t make sense. She remembered that swim. She remembered running back to the house and talking to Jesse. She’d been filled with complete elation. Electrified. How could she have felt that way if something bad had happened to her?
“So,” Jesse said. “Want to do it here? We probably shouldn’t stay away for long.”
They’d reached a relatively secluded spot, behind a tree and near where the grass was bordered by bushes.
“Okay,” Quinn said, sitting and then lying down on a patch of dried leaves. Her pillow-stomach was disconcerting. She took it out from under her clothes and set it aside. Jesse took off his beard and headpiece.
After giving her a moment to settle into the space, he started reciting the now-familiar hypnosis script, trying to get her to relax and picture herself in a beautiful, peaceful landscape where nothing could hurt her and where all memories would be safe.
But all she could think about was that night on Southaven and the realization that she needed to talk to Jesse about it, to ask him again what she was like when she came back from her swim. And she knew that if they were really going to talk about that night, she needed to tell him the whole story. She needed to tell him what had happened with Marco. The thought made her want to vomit. If she put it off for even one minute, she wouldn’t have the courage.
She sat up. “Um, instead of doing this, can we talk about . . . that night over Memorial Day? You know, when I went swimming?”
“Uh, sure,” he said, sounding surprised. “What about it?”
She fiddled with the edge of the bed sheet. “So, you said I seemed happy when I came back?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure?”
“I thought you remembered all that?”
“I do. Or, I think I do. I just want to make sure I have it right. Did I look, I don’t know, messed up at all? I mean physically?”
“You were wet. You know, your hair was all straggly. So, yeah, kind of.” He tilted his head. “Why? I mean, why are you coming back to it now?”
Quinn chewed on her cheeks. “I need to tell you something. I want you to know that it . . . it has nothing to do with you. I know that sounds impossible. But it doesn’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That night at the bonfire . . .”
“Yeah?”
“You walked Mom and Lydia home with the good flashlight and then came back.”
“Right, I remember that. I got lost.”
“Yeah. And . . . while you were gone . . .” Quinn stared at her hands, which were twisted together so tightly the knuckles shone white in the dark. “While you were gone I talked to that guy, Marco.”
“Who?”
“Um . . . the guy with the blackish hair? The Cavanaughs’ nephew? You know, the people who were hosting the party.”
“The baseball player?”
“Yeah. So . . . I walked down the dock, just to look at the water, and he was there. And . . . we ended up, um, kissing.” Quinn thought her heart might have stopped beating as she waited for Jesse to speak.
“He kissed you?” he finally said.
“Um, yeah.”
“While I was just, like, ten minutes away?”
“Yes.”
“Wow.” He raised his eyebrows. “What a fucking asshole. And, shit . . .” Now his brows were knit tight. “If he did that then, do you think he, you know . . . Quinn, of course! Why didn’t you tell me before? I mean, if this guy came onto you, kissed you . . .”
Her tongue felt thick in her dry mouth. “Well . . . the thing is, it’s not quite as obvious as that, because I kind of kissed him.”
“What?”
“He wasn’t hitting on me. He didn’t make me do it.” As hard as it was to say all of this, she didn’t want to mislead him into thinking Marco had seemed like someone who would hurt her.
Jesse was absolutely still.
“I’m so, so, so sorry,” she said. “It didn’t mean anything, and it had nothing to do with you. It was just an impulse because . . . I don’t know. I’ve tried and tried to figure it out but it never makes any sense.”
“Nothing to do with me?” His voice was incredulous.
“No. It was . . . it was just a weird impulse. A moment. And you and I hadn’t been together that long. Just a few weeks. I mean, not that that really matters.” The minute she said that she regretted it.
“Holy shit,” he said, like he’d had a revelation.
“What?”
“That night. When you went ‘swimming.’” He made air quotes.
“No,” Quinn said, shaking her head. “No, I wasn’t with him. I wasn’t.”
“I’m supposed to believe you?” He stared off into the trees, eyes narrow. “I knew something was weird when you came back.”
“What do you mean, weird? You just said I seemed fine.”
“You were so happy, it was weird. Not like you’d just left me there like an idiot. You couldn’t even hide it. Now it makes total sense.”
“No, Jesse. I know I lied to you about this. I know I kissed him, but—”
“While I was there! Well, not right there because I was being a fucking gentleman and walking your mother and sister home.”
“I know,” Quinn said. “I know. I’m so sorry. It was a mistake. I have no idea why I did it. But why would I even have brought this up if I’d been with him?”
“I don’t know. How am I supposed to believe you about anything?”
“It was just a kiss, Jesse.”
“Right,” he said. “So why are you telling me this now?”
She drew a deep breath, then explained what had happened with Ben and Marco, and how Marco said he’d seen her lying on the rock.
“And I have no memory of that. So . . . I was just wondering if I’m remembering other things wrong. I needed to make sure of what my mood seemed like when you saw me.”
“So you told me because Ben figured it out,” Jesse said. “And you needed to cover your ass.”
“No,” she said. “No, Jess. Please. I told you . . . I told you because I need to really know what I was like that night. Since it seems weird, what Marco said.”
“So you need my help.”
She looked down.
“I already told you what I remember. Your hair was wet and you were all weirdly happy and didn’t seem to feel bad that you’d left me there like an idiot.” He let out a choked laugh. “I can’t believe I thought you actually went swimming. In that fucking freezing water.”
“I did go swimming! No matter what else happened, that’s why I went down there. I swear to god,” she said. “I remember it. I think that Marco is the one who must be wrong. Or who must not have seen me for more than a second. And when I got back . . . I just didn’t understand why you were so upset. I mean, I wasn’t lying when I said I thought you’d gone to bed. You were in the house for a while.”
“How could you not realize why I was upset? We were there on the deck, under the stars, and it’s like the most romantic moment ever . . . And you brought that condom. What was I supposed to think? And then I said I’d be back, but when I come back out you’re just gone.”
“Wait, what?” Quinn said, startled. “What condom?”
“The one in your bag. I saw it earlier in the day, when you asked me to bring out your sunglasses. In that pocket.”
Shit. That was where she’d stashed the condom from health class. That bag. “I didn’t bring that on purpose,” she said. “You thought . . .”
“Well, obviously I was wrong.” He grabbed his hair with both hands and closed his eyes. “I’m such a fucking idiot. I even texted Oliver to ask if I should say something or . . . whatever. I was so nervous. Like a total asshole. Clearly you weren’t bringing it to use with me.”
“No,” she said. “No, Jess. I promise. You can be mad at me about the kiss,
but there’s nothing else. I didn’t bring that condom on purpose. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I was going that night. When you went inside, I really thought you’d gone to bed. I must not have heard you say you’d be right back.” She’d been distracted, it was true. Distracted by the ocean calling her.
“Didn’t you feel bad when we were watching the movie?” he said, lowering his hands and looking at her again. “You didn’t seem upset.”
She hadn’t been upset; he was right. The guilt hadn’t hit her until she was back in Brooklyn, as if she’d unpacked it with her clothes. “I knew it didn’t mean anything,” she said. “I knew I loved you.”
“I should have known,” he muttered.
“What?”
“That this was too good to be true. That you don’t really want me. I’m so fucking stupid.”
“I do want you, Jesse! I do. I always have! You know that.”
He stood up. “I need to go. Home. I need to go home. This just . . . sucks too much to be here.”
Quinn stood quickly, too, her heart being shredded by every word. “Okay,” she said, wiping under her eyes.
“Can you get one of your parents to pick you up?” he asked.
“Uh, no. Not soon. But I can stay until they’re here.”
“You want to stay at the party?”
She didn’t answer.
“You can walk with me, if you want.”
“You’re sure?”
“Whatever,” he snapped. “Do you want to stay?”
She shook her head.
“Then fine. Let’s go.”
It took hours—no, days—to reach her house.
As they walked through the park in suffocating silence, Quinn wondered if it was the worst she’d ever felt in her life. She wondered if feeling this bad did actual physical damage to her insides. Or, even worse, to the baby.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she said, as they stood outside her gate. The bag she was carrying with her costume in it weighed a million pounds.
He didn’t respond.
“Do you . . . Do you at least believe me that I wasn’t purposefully with him when I went swimming?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I believe.”
Quinn pressed her lips together and nodded.
“Are you going to go in?” he asked finally. “Because I don’t really want to stand here with you.”
“Oh,” she said. “Yeah.” Walking away from him, she felt like she was leaving behind a vital organ. She dragged her feet up the stoop, put her key in the lock, and then turned around. Normally, he’d have been waiting right outside the gate, making sure she got in safely, but he’d already started up the block. Something clutched at her chest, and she put down her bag and hurried back down the steps and through the gate, feeling like if she let him go she’d never see him again. He was at the top of the block, turning the corner, hunched over with hands in his pockets.
Before she had a second to decide whether to chase after him, a noise drew her attention to the sidewalk. A cup—one of those plastic sippy cups—lay by her feet, and a little ways away, a couple stood with a kid in a stroller. She picked up the cup and moved forward to hand it to the toddler, still looking up toward Jesse, willing him to turn around.
As she reached out, there was a brief flash of light, and then the woman standing with the child grabbed Quinn’s wrist. Next to her, the man was holding up a phone to take pictures. It was the same couple that had been out there earlier in the night. The man who had looked at her strangely, with the toddler who had been coughing. Quinn was too shocked by the woman’s odd, unexpected touch to try to pull away.
“It’s you,” the woman said, her voice breathless and amazed. “Isn’t it?”
“Excuse me?” Quinn said.
“It’s you,” the woman repeated. “You’re the Virgin.”
PETER VEGA
VIRGIN MOM MIRACLE!
By Peter Vega
If Democratic Congressional nominee Gabriel Cutler gets elected, he might have some pull in high—very high—places.
Not only is his teen daughter pregnant and, according to numerous sources, believes she’s a virgin, now it seems that she’s performing miracles, too. According to Ariana Lang of Woodside, Queens, sixteen-year-old Quinn Cutler’s touch has cured her three-year-old child of an undiagnosed but serious illness that had been plaguing the child for weeks.
In an interview with the New York Herald, Lang explained a chain of connections beginning with an online forum of medical workers that led her and her husband, Victor Lang, to hear about the virgin pregnancy. “No one else believed it,” Mrs. Lang said. “But we went to the house whenever we could last week and waited. We both work, so it was hard. But we had faith, and then she came, and she touched him. On the head.”
Here Lang got too choked up to speak for a minute but finished by saying, “By the time we got home that night, his rash and fever were gone, his eyes and chest were clear. He was better. No medicine. Nothing has come back. It was a miracle, I swear to God.”
The Herald broke the story of Miss Cutler’s supposed virgin pregnancy on Thursday. At that time, sources included numerous people, including a member of the family. But it was only after that story that the paper was contacted both by Mrs. Lang and by a medical worker, who wishes to remain anonymous, who disclosed that Miss Cutler insisted on her virginity right when her pregnancy was discovered. The medical worker refused to confirm or deny whether there was medical proof of the girl’s virginity.
The Herald was unable to find anyone acquainted with Miss Cutler who had ever heard her give an explanation of the pregnancy. As seen in numerous pictures on Instagram dressed as the Virgin Mary, she certainly looks the part.
It remains to be seen whether voters in Cutler’s district will want to call in the big guns in the sky when voting next month.
Peter Vega held the print copy of the Herald in his hands—so fresh the ink was almost wet.
He couldn’t get over it—a front-page story. And it was only his second story for the Herald ever. His first piece about Quinn, a couple of days ago, had been buried in the middle pages. Just a little item. Nothing like this lead article with a huge headline and photo and everything. (Seeing it had made him reconsider his opinion that print newspapers should be obsolete.)
Peter hadn’t been surprised when Gazer had refused to post that first, short item breaking the Virgin story—they had ethical standards, after all, and the whole thing was based on a ten-year-old kid’s say-so. (That poor kid, Lydia. She’d been so excited when she was the one to answer the phone that time he called. To get the chance to defend her sister. All he’d been hoping for was a little dirt. He’d had no idea Quinn supposedly didn’t know how she got pregnant or about the Virgin rumor circulating online.) And he hadn’t been surprised that the Herald would print it. Ethical standards? Not really the Herald’s thing. But readership? They had it in droves.
QUINN
Quinn stood behind the door, inside the shadowy entryway, hidden from the crowd of people gathered on the sidewalk in front of the Cutlers’ house. She rubbed her belly, trying to calm herself with the rhythmic motion. The door was cracked open just enough so that she heard her father begin to speak from his spot on the stoop.
“I understand your feelings, your desire to believe in something,” he said, his voice steady and even, the opposite of how he was a minute ago on the phone with some lawyer. The chick, chick, chick of cameras filled the spaces around his words. “But while my daughter is a wonderful girl, she’s just a regular sixteen-year-old. A sixteen-year-old who is scared and overwhelmed by all of this attention. I’m sure you’re all caring people, so I ask that you please show your respect by not making her uncomfortable in her own home. In addition, this is a quiet, residential street. My neighbors would also appreciate your consideration in not lingering on the block.
“For the media, I’ll reiterate that I’ve made the only statement I’m going to about our p
rivate family issues. However, if anyone has a question about issues facing the city or my candidacy, I’ll be happy to answer it.”
A jumble of voices came all at once. “Over there,” Gabe said, cutting them off. “Go ahead.” A woman’s voice said, “A lot of people are saying that the turmoil in your family is going to be too much of a distraction if you’re elected. How would you respond to that?”
“First of all, this current drama will be short-lived, I’m sure. Secondly, we all fight many battles on many fronts every day. My wife and I have managed to raise three outstanding children while having extremely active and challenging careers. Next question. Here, in the front.”
“Is it true your daughter told her doctors she was a virgin?”
“Okay, we’re done here,” Gabe said. “Thank you for listening, and for respecting my family’s privacy.”
Quinn scooted backward as the door opened. Raised voices were shouting out more questions as her father came inside, followed by her mother and Taylor, who practically lived with them now.
“That was perfect,” Quinn said, trying not to let her voice shake.
“Unfortunately, if they were interested in reason, they wouldn’t be here in the first place,” Gabe said.
“How can they not listen?” Katherine locked the door. “This is our home.”
Taylor answered a call and moved into the living room. Gabe headed down to the kitchen, came back up with an empty cardboard box, and went outside again, then returned with the box full of items people had left on the fence and sidewalk. Things people had left for Quinn. She watched as he sorted through them: flowers, candles, photographs, prayer cards (Quinn had never even seen a prayer card until yesterday), stuffed animals—these went straight into a black trash bag. He placed envelopes in a separate pile, not the trash; tied the garbage bag and left it in the hall; then took the envelopes upstairs. Minutes later, Quinn heard the whir of his shredder.
He’d used the shredder on hundreds of copies of the New York Herald a couple of days ago, when the tabloid published its first mention of Quinn: a short, mocking item in the “Weird News” section about the daughter of “bestselling author and wannabe congressman” Gabriel Cutler—a sixteen-year-old who believed she was a pregnant virgin. A photo of Quinn in costume, taken off of someone’s Instagram account, was captioned: “Costume ain’t no joke, folks.” The article quoted guests from Gabe’s campaign party and a member of the Cutler family who needed to stay anonymous, “for obvious reasons.” (Yeah, because she was ten!)
The Inconceivable Life of Quinn Page 15